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Stories for the day

Yud-Tes Kislev

Rosh Hashanah of Chassidus — liberation of the Alter Rebbe (1798); yahrzeit of the Maggid of Mezritch (1772)

י״ט כסלו
19 Kislev

Yud-Tes Kislev in Liozna, Told by Reb Yossele

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 38-39, no. 14

Dur­ing the time my zeide was learn­ing in the Tzemach Tzedek’s study hall, “Czar Niko­lai was look­ing for them” (for forcible con­scrip­tion into the army). The Rebbe sent them away from Lubav­itch — some to Kalisk, some to Li­ozna. My zeide wound up in Li­ozna, and was there for Yud-Tes Kislev.

What were the ar­range­ments in Li­ozna? Peo­ple brought large bot­tles of mashkeh and sacks filled with liver. Reb Yos­sele, a ven­er­a­ble chos­sid who was around when the Al­ter Rebbe was ar­rested, sat at the head of the ta­ble and re­lated the events from be­gin­ning to end. When he came to the part where the sol­diers struck the Al­ter Rebbe’s wife, knock­ing out two of her teeth, he wept.

Reb Yos­sele then re­lated that the next Yud-Tes Kislev — the first to be cel­e­brated in Li­ozna — an im­mense group of chas­sidim gath­ered to­gether. Yud-Tes Kislev was warm then, and they set up a large tent in the front court­yard. The Al­ter Rebbe him­self walked around ask­ing peo­ple to eat and drink, to cel­e­brate. He said, “My Yom- Tov is es­pe­cially great since the ar­rest con­cerned spir­i­tual and phys­i­cal mat­ters, and Hashem has helped. Re­joice!”

SimchaHiskashrusMesiras Nefesh

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Sh'u Yedeichem Kodesh: Mochin and Midos

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 273-274, no. 116

In the mid­dle of the seu­dah the Rebbe said, “We should re­ally speak Chas­sidus — but it is not an ap­pro­pri­ate time. What does that mean, that ‘it is not an ap­pro­pri­ate time’? — nev­er­the­less: it is not an ap­pro­pri­ate time.”

And he be­gan speak­ing: “The first Chas­sidus that the Al­ter Rebbe said when he left the Taini So­viet was קודש ידיכם שאו – Lift up your hands in ho­li­ness ,2 for the Al­ter Rebbe and the Mit­teler Rebbe held seem­ingly dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives, the Al­ter Rebbe con­sid­ered heart ( lev) to be most im­por­tant, while the Mit­teler Rebbe con­sid­ered mind ( mochin) as the most im­por­tant. When the Al­ter Rebbe came from Pe­ters­burg he told the Mit­teler Rebbe, ‘You are cor­rect, only that we must en­sure that mochin il­lu­mi­nate the mi­dos ( emo­tions )’ — and this is how he ex­plained the po­suk, ‘ Lift up your hands in Kodesh’ : mochin is kodesh, and mi­dos are your hands. We must lift up the mi­dos in or­der that they be il­lu­mi­nated by mochin.”

This is what I re­mem­ber. A few words may be miss­ing but, G-d for­bid, I have not added a sin­gle let­ter.

  1. Tehillim 134:2. ↩
Emes

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"I Hear a Fly's Wings"

As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, p. 39, no. 15 · The Alter Rebbe

When the Al­ter Rebbe heard an in­fant cry­ing in the Mit­teler Rebbe’s room, he came in­side — where the Mit­teler Rebbe sat with­out hear­ing the cries — and asked, “Why don’t you learn from me? In the deep­est med­i­ta­tion, I can still hear a fly’s wings beat­ing against the wall. ”

The Alter Rebbe Ahavas YisraelCompassionBittul

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